


Which Version Of You Will I See Tonight?

by inkythumbs



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cyclothymic Personality, Falling In Love, Lemons, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Misunderstandings, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkythumbs/pseuds/inkythumbs
Summary: Alternately, "The One Where I Use The Word "Lemon" 15 Times In Chapter 1".Sometimes, he's Jim. And that's great. He's witty, honest, open and... human. I can scoff at how much lemon he puts in his tea, push him in fun, tell stories of my past in exchange for letting him share some of the weight in his mind with me.Sometimes, he's the Boss. That's fine, it's what I signed up for, what I get paid for. He won't eat, sleep or talk to me but he's up to the eyeballs in work and that's okay.Sometimes, he's scary. Scarier than the man who runs every major crime in England from a desk in a flat. Sometimes, he's a mix of honest, troubled Jim and the cruel, sadistic Boss and something raw and frightening crackles and writhes between his bones and jumps into me.Always, I wonder, "Which version of you will I see tonight?"
Relationships: Sebastian Moran & Jim Moriarty, Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty, Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41





	1. Lemons

"Sebastian?"

It was that voice, the Jim voice with the higher tone, in all of its Irish glory, that commanded my immediate attention out of my interest rather than his threat.

"Jim?"

He was perched atop one of his dreadfully uncomfortable square barstools, chosen to match the minimalist decor of the apartment, a starkly contrasting china teacup pinched between a slender finger and thumb. He sipped at his tea - strong and black with much too many lemons floating atop it. It was one of those old-fashioned whims like his penchant for classical music and a suit as everyday attire which he was often warm towards despite his over-modern apartment. White walls, grey wooden floor and hard, blocky furniture that was decorated only with the chaos of paperwork and plans which interrupted any and all smooth, clean lines of furniture that they could be thrown upon without sliding off. The clash between all three worlds - the order of the ultra-modern, the fancy of the old-timey and the sporadics of his mind - came to odd blends all over his apartment. Sometimes, if I thought hard enough; really questioned why he would leave a full teacup from the delicate peonie-patterned set on top of urgent plans on top of the very white cube sofa, I reckoned that I could see just a hint of a hint of what it was like to live in Jim's mind. Fractious, rippling and never at rest, constantly warring every day between all of his personas and what chaos he would bring into the world to ease the chaos of his mind, and if he was allowed to be Jim today or if he had to be the Boss.

Today, right now, as he set his gold-rimmed teacup down on its matching saucer, he was Jim.

"Do you know what I was when I started this whole enterprise?" He mused, looking into his citrus-tainted cup. When he wasn't playing Boss, Jim always left me time to reply, was patient and easy with me.

"I dunno. What's that?"

"Fifteen." He took another sip. Now, he was 21 years old. "I was fifteen and I'd been running an underground drugs ring with the older boys since I was thirteen. Eventually, the other boys left school for college or, more likely, nothing of great worth." He became quiet, waiting for acknowledgment.

"So, you took over their business and made it boom?" I prompted.

"In short, yes, I suppose so. There's no shame in that, is there? In claiming to be self-made, the most dangerous man in… how far across the world have I made it now?" He turned to look at me now.

"England?" I met his gaze.

"Just England?" He looked back to his cup again. "Oh well, it's not shameful, is it? Or something to be mocked? I could have made this on my own, in fact there's been nothing left of their work in years and years, and the work I do now is so different…"

"But…?"

"But…" He shifted, smoothed out the single crease he'd acquired from the movement and pushed away a crucial piece of work that was cramping his space. "I feel as though I'm a fraud. And not in the literal sense; the embellishment, false personas, hacking." He shrugged and pulled his suit jacket down again. "That's who I am. But sometimes, even with my great twisting web and the world around my little finger and all the death and destruction and _bad_ I could do with a single text, sometimes…"

He didn't finish his musings. Usually, he never really did. He just left me with just enough of his thoughts to draw my conclusions and just too little so that he needn't strain to form words for each rapid thought. From the glass bowl in the centre of his paper-trashed counter, he drew another lemon slice and dropped it into his teacup.

"I joined the army straight out of school," I spoke above the _tink-tink-tink_ of Jim stirring in the new lemon. 

He raised his eyebrows in polite interest, though I knew he already knew everything about me. Sometimes Jim liked to be treated just like an ordinary man to whom I could share my stories as if he hadn't accessed every piece of data ever to mention a Sebastian Moran.

I continued, "I guess I had trouble with a hero complex back then. I wanted to be seen, respected and _useful._ I also wanted to kill. The army seemed perfect for that. I was noticed pretty quickly for my rifle skills and discipline, which got me all of those qualities faster than I'd even hoped. But a lot of people would be surprised about how many days you spend, stiff and still as your orders dictate in stifling mud or burning sand or choking humidity, without even getting to shoot a bastard."

Jim smiled. "So what went wrong?" He asked, already having read every report in full about what went wrong.

"We were in some faraway rainforest in some faraway land, had been for a few days without any opportunity to have a bit of a scuffle with the enemy. This one day, we're deep in the forest, trekking to enemy camp, and I see a tiger at the water's edge. It was such a pretty beast; I couldn't help thinking 'is anyone gonna take their chance to ruin that?'. And apparently no one was, but they were all egging me on to give it a go, being my mates and all, and I was itching to cause some damage. I lay on the ground with my rifle and got a little closer to the water behind some bushes, rustling a little when I got close enough. The beast looked up, straight at me with big yellow eyes. Then _bam! bam!_ " I mimed the action. "Both eyes just exploded from its skull." 

I grinned at Jim, though his preened eyebrows were furrowed. "I thought you were attacked by a tiger and your killing of it was deemed 'unjust and overly cruel'?."

"Oh, yeah, that was after. Yeah, its mama or whatever was nearby and heard the shots coming from my area - ran straight at me. I shot at her but she was so fucking fast and I only clipped her shoulder - steady on with the look, Jim, I was younger then - giving her the chance to slice up my chest pretty good." I traced the scars through my shirt, still beastly rivers of shiny white in my skin after all this time. "Then I killed her. Not before shooting each of her legs and slicing her stomach open, though. I guess that was too cruel for my mates to take."

Jim was smiling, eyes relaxed. "You know, I do like all of your stories much better when you tell them." He sipped his tea and grimaced. "Though, you did take so very long that my tea is cold now."

"I'll make you another." I stood and placed his old cup and saucer on the side to wash later, full of pale, bloated lemons. "Which set do you want?"

"After such a story, which do you think?"

A smile rose to my lips even though my back was turned to him. I took out the little box and opened the lid to a dainty silver spoon with leaf engravings, a saucer decorated with fat vines and dots of orange and a lettuce-trim teacup, decorated on both sides with a roaring tiger, framed by Indian greenery. Four lemon slices went into the bottom of the little cup with newly-brewed tea on top "to better force out the flavour". I squashed the pieces with the teaspoon, watching the liquid turn cloudy within an inch of its life and placed it in front of Jim. His eyes glinted deviously at the correct choice of cup. He took a sip and gagged, squeezing his dark eyes shut in a show of dramatics, before adding four more lemon slices to the cup.

"Would you like any tea with your lemon, sir?" I jested, very much taking advantage of Jim being Jim today.

"No, I shan't think so. I can't believe that it bothers you so much."

"It doesn't bother me. It's just really, freakishly wrong."

"What is it that we do for a living, Sebastian?"

I shook my head, laughing. "There are no two ways about it - it's just plain wrong."

"Sebastian," Jim became almost entirely serious for a moment, "the day I stop taking lemon in my tea for someone else's comfort, I want you to take me to the rooftop and shoot me."

"What?" I stepped back, uncertain of whether or not to laugh. "Why?"

"Presume I've gone mad."

"And you're not already?"

"No, if I ever go without my precious lemons, it might be in the public interest to call a neurobiologist to my post-mortem after you've shot me."

"It's that bad, huh?" I scoffed.

"If I ever, _ever_ do something like that, I know I will have gone quite deranged, dear Sebastian. The day I choose someone else over my lemons, well, that's the day that I've fallen deeply, madly, in love."

My jaw dropped. Jim rolled his eyes in that unique diva way and I picked it back up from where it had slammed through the floors of every apartment level. Jim? And… love? That would be quite mad.

"You don't need to act so shellshocked, 'Bastian, I'm still human. Is that not what makes me so impressive?"

"Weren't you a fraud a few minutes ago?"

He ignored me and I stopped up all cheeky remarks. He seemed to be becoming the Boss very quickly. "I'm no stranger to attraction, you must know. It's only logical that there is, somewhere within my mind, perhaps lodged between a certain Tchaikovsky piece and my next step to world domination, the potential for me to fall in love. It's not a prospect I'm very keen on though, wouldn't you agree?"

"I guess."

"It's much too… weak. My enterprise will truly crumble." He took a sip, observed the tiger on the teacup and the developing hard lines and angles of his face softened again. "Love and lemons, don't you think I've gone mad already?"

"Definitely."

"Hmm. Let's watch a movie tonight."

"Which one?"

"Any. It can be in Norwegian for all that it will matter to me. And afterwards, would you be so kind as to fetch me someone's head with a bullet hole straight through the forehead?"

"And then tea with lemons?"

He grinned, catlike. "Lemons with tea, dear 'Bastian."

\----

The man sitting taut and upright at his desk the next morning, eyes bouncing between a computer monitor, a laptop screen and his cell phone by the computer mouse, wasn't Jim anymore. Today belonged to the Boss and the Boss did not like to be disturbed.

With minimal noise, I padded to the kitchen, making my presence known without sparking a fit of rage by speaking. I set the kettle off and hunted in the cupboards for something to offer that had at least a small chance of being nibbled at. In the bread drawer I managed to find a baguette wrapped in a napkin which I halved and spread with the rich, creamy butter which was often the only way to make Jim's food go down. The tea had boiled in the meantime so I made quick work of slicing a new lemon into rounds and cutting those rounds into equal slices and putting four of those slices into the cup. He always took more than four but he liked to do the adding himself. When he was the Boss, it would have been a deathwish if I wanted to add more or less slices. I added the remaining slices to the glass bowl, slid the teacup onto the saucer with one hand, picked up the baguette in the other and held the bowl in the crook of my elbow, carrying his sustenance to the edge of his desk wordlessly. I returned to the kitchen to make myself some cereal, watching him.

His eyes looked nowhere but the three screens occupying his focus and, for a while, did not move his hands from the keyboard. I stirred my cereal slowly, quietly, not wanting to disturb his quiet by eating it until he'd separated from his work enough to take some tea. For a while, the entire space was rapped with nothing but the _clack-clack-clack_ of the computer keyboard, the _kit-kit-kit_ of the laptop keys and the _tap-tap-tap_ on the phone screen. I'd already elected to stop stirring my cereal since the hoops were quickly dissolving into thin bands.

Just as I was about to return to my room to eat without disturbing his focus, he reached for his teacup absently, still typing furiously with his other hand, and drank. He set it down again, displeased, and piled more lemons into it without looking. He took another sip and, to my great satisfaction, nibbled a little at the baguette. I started to eat my own breakfast then. It was only when he looked up at me in response to the sound and raised his eyebrows a little that I realised I'd been grinning. 

He looked back to his screens once more and started typing on his cell phone. Seconds later, my own phone quivered in my pocket.

_Moran,_

_Take out this target on Charles II St._

_6' 1", wearing a blue suit and black backpack._

  * _Attachment: 2 images_



_You don't have to clean up._

_M._

Displeased but not at all surprised that he'd given me a mission by means of text rather than breaking from his mindset to speak, I typed a quick reply before collecting my duffel bag of kit.

_Yes, Boss._

_Moran._

The stakeout that morning was expectedly unpleasant, despite the thrill of waiting for the kill. It was an all too bright June day, especially on top of a roof with one eye permanently open to the harsh light. Not long had passed before I started to sweat from my forehead and over my entire body, making my fingers slick. I couldn't take them from the rifle to wipe them in case the target came into view before I could regain my focus. With the Boss, no one was permitted to make a single mistake, regardless of the reason. I didn't suppose perspiration would be worth arguing a case for if I lost the mark.

After all was done, I had been poised atop that rooftop in the summer heat for four hours before I had seen the target. It was a clean shot despite my damp hands and my kit was dismantled in my bag before anyone even turned to see the body that had fallen in the daylit street. I was down the building and walking the other way before a substantial crowd had even formed. I sent a text to the Boss confirming the hit. I noticed the pink tinge of a steadily rising sunburn on my hand, growing in one diagonal line up to my elbow and entirely covering my upper arm. I'd suffered much worse injuries for much less, but it would still sting without end that night.

I returned to the lavish apartment building, all of which belonged to the Boss though he chose to reside solely in the largest flat, and ascended each step to the biometric scanners. Just three little steps before I could confirm my identity, cross the grand hall to the elevators, turn a few corners and end up back in the apartment where I could finally sit without holding each muscle in place for hours. _One, two-_ and I didn't get to three before my phone vibrated.

_Moran,_

_Take out this target on Phoenix St._

_5' 11", wearing cream trousers and navy shirt._

  * _Attachment: 3 images_



_You don't have to clean up._

_M._

I closed my eyes, feeling the rush of warmth behind them as all of my bodily exhaustion filled the space, willing me to take a nap, to sit, to stop for a moment. The burns on my arms felt ever more red, prickly and scalding. My neck was strained, my spine ached, my fingers were stiff.

I wiped the sweat from my brow.

_Yes, Boss._

_Moran._


	2. Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set some years in the past.

I was 24, freshly booted from the army and desperately needing to once more feel the cold thrill of bloodshed when, through a string of freelance work as an assassin, a Moriarty contact reached out to me. She told me that I had caught the network's interest, in a rather uninterested voice, and that I was to meet with a representative and discuss a contract. Now, day-to-day I know that contracts are an easy way to get yourself involved in some nasty legal trouble, which I was not enthusiastic to invite considering my past few months' work. But, this woman was muscular under her suit, her knuckles busted and a tooth missing from the side of her mouth and I knew she was like me. This network wasn't government money and government fireworks ablazing, it was real, raw threat and awful, dirty work. 

If there was anything that I wanted to be contractually obliged to, it was filthy, bloody work.

My contract was for 3 years' service dabbling in an assorted pick 'n' mix of murder, interrogation and just pure torture without any desire for information. I had only been led around this sadist's candy store for a few months when another snippy representative came to take me to an impromptu meeting. I assumed that I would be briefed on one of the more complex assignments for which I needed a more extensive, in-person debrief. It wad only as the representative had pressed a buzzer and had been permitted to open the door for me, with a simple "the Boss will see you now" as if I wouldn't have been dissected for one wrong move in front of the famed Moriarty, that I realised how serious this job could be.

The Boss looked a great deal different back then, though his demeanour was not softened nor toughened but had remained cold, driven and unconnected. Even so, he seemed so small at his chair in one of his offices that, upon meeting him after months of faceless commands for handsomely-paid jobs, I almost laughed. His suit was perfectly tailored, showing his lanky, boyish figure; 5' 7" in generously-heeled dress shoes. His face was youthful and pale, having not yet shed all of the softness of childhood, and clean-shaven for neatness - or presumably to hide the not-quite-there facial hair. He was 17. I almost laughed.

Then he fixed his eyes into mine. Black, deep black, the kind that doesn't shine or reflect or turn glossy in the light. Soulless and cold yet full of the fires of malice and sin, his eyes bore into mine and I bit back any words that would betray my disobedience. I'd always had issues with authority - God knows how I was permitted to be in the army so long, even with a shot like mine - and didn't back down to power and control lightly. And yet, somehow, this 17 year old boy had in a moment reduced me to one of his loyal personal soldiers. I blinked.

"Good morning, Boss."

He continued to stare deep into me, expressionless, but gestured to the seat opposite to him at the very back of the room where I'd entered. As soon became the majority of my conversations with the Boss, I sat and he commanded. 

"Moran. Your work has been really quite good." His voice surprised me somewhat - it was light and lilting with an accent that I came to realise was more muted when he took on the role of Boss. Nevertheless, he was still Moriarty and he would still gut me if he thought that I was mocking him. I said nothing. "Really very good, in fact. I'm considering promoting you to a more personal role on the side, with a great deal more salary, of course." He eyed me with a little impatience, permitting me to speak.

"What would the extra role be?"

"Oh, a sort of bodyguard here and there, never too often - I wouldn't want to tame such an avid marksman as yourself - but a few gigs when I must travel or short stays in one of my apartments when tensions are a little high…" He grinned, teeth clenched in a show of forced courtesy and clear threat. It was the smile of the Boss, the one which was present in sending the cruellest orders and most terrifying games. "You can handle that, can't you? For three times your current wage?"

My eyes widened involuntarily. I fixed my face in vain; his grin had already widened impossibly. With that rate, plus the promise of still having my fingers in gruesome pies, he knew he could tell me to do anything.

For the rest of my first year, my job as physical protection was only necessary in short stints when the Boss was personally tempting British services all over the country as entertainment and had use for me in case of a close range attack. I'd spent enough time on rooftops as part of my contract and it gave me a powerful feeling, walking alongside the most dangerous man in London to protect  _ him _ from danger. Talk about an ego boost!

About a year later, British-international affairs got a little quieter and there was more of a national government effort to thwart Moriarty. I was called upon to stay in one of the Boss' apartment buildings, amongst 24/7 surveillance staff and intelligence workers, to monitor the situation and keep the network secure. Initially, I kept mostly out of his way altogether except for minimal communication over text assignments. I stayed up each night at first, sleeping during the day, to listen and observe. Over time, with the government still a great many more steps behind Moriarty than they believed, the risk level declined. Always a light sleeper since the army drills in the middle of the night, I would consistently wake to the hoots of owls, the roar of an obnoxious sports car engine, the commotion of the city.

One night, I woke to the sound of the fridge opening and rummaging in the drawers. Still half-asleep, it seemed to me that an enemy of Moriarty would absolutely halt his murder attempt in order to steal a morsel from the fridge and my fingers twitched to the cold metal of the handgun under my pillow without a conscious thought. I pried my door open slightly, always ajar but pushed to appear closed to prevent alerting any intruders, and saw the Boss' door wide open. He never left his door anything short of locked and bolted shut, least of all open like this, bedside lamp on and illuminating the mess inside. My senses sharpened. Was the mess his own or caused by a struggle? Surely I would have heard more than the fridge if it were so. I turned down the hallway, padding in bare feet and very aware of the noise they made against the wooden floor, to the kitchen. 

A figure was standing by the counter in the back of the kitchen, a silhouette against the cabinet spotlights in front. I raised my gun.

"Sebastian, it's only me."

I startled. It was the Boss, looking at me over his shoulder. His voice was just as distinctive yet somehow breezier and more accented. His posture was as straight and proper as ever yet somewhat more fluid and natural. His face was pale, youthful and recognisable like always yet his eyes, those dead black eyes, were impossibly revived and glinting in the light of the kitchen. It was the Boss yet I couldn't seem to place anything about Moriarty anywhere on this boy of 18.

"Sorry, Boss, I came to check out the noise."

He made a small, amused hum. "I'm not quite your boss right now, Sebastian. Come, sit, I'll make you some tea. I'm just about finished cutting the lemon for mine, how do you take yours?"

"Uh, milk and sugar, what-"

"Come, Sebastian, I'll explain it all to you if you wish it." He piled slices of lemon into a glass bowl and reached for two teacups whilst I stared stupidly. He made up the cups and brought them to the bar counter, sitting on one of the stools and pushing my cup to the stool next to him. I took it purely by muscle memory, still entirely rattled.

"Thanks, uh… what's all this, Boss?"

"I'm not quite him right now, Sebastian. Right now, I'm just Jim and I want you to talk to me just like you would talk to anyone else. Any time you see me like this, I know you can tell which me I am from the look on your face, I want you to call me Jim; just Jim." He sipped. "You look a great deal more confused than I expected."

"Sorry B- Jim. I just… uh, what if I call you Jim when you're not?"

"I suppose, regrettably, I might harvest your organs." He chuckled, a sound so foreign for him that I'd never even wondered to imagine it. It wasn't a manic giggle, nor a dry laugh, but was so genuine and normal that it brought more disquietude to me than either of the former would have done. "Well, the other me might do so. That's not to say, Sebastian, that I have multiple personalities or any other frightful business, oh no. All it is is that some days I wake up and I have that hard shell, hard mind… I have to work every second of those days, I mostly do so anyway, but if I don't occupy my mind on those days…" He grew quiet.

"What about other days?"

"Other days, I work just as hard because my empire will not run without me and no one must suspect that I'm not the Moriarty machine every single day. But in my head, at least for that day, a fraction of the static white noise, the agony of my intellect at rest, the narrow-lens focus alleviates just a touch. I don't suppose I act so different on these days - I tend to launch into work just as much as the days when I have to, just so that the work won't fail. And so that no one will take advantage of the infamous Moriarty being…"

"You talk a lot different."

"I'm permitting myself to. Drink your tea."

I drank, unaware of the taste. "Shouldn't you hide this from me?"

"I've memorised every bone of each of the skeletons in all of the closest of your life, Sebastian. You'll never find a job that quenches your thirst for pain and killing quite like this. I pay you such an amount of money that you wouldn't topple my network even if you could."

"Well. Still. Shouldn't you anyway, on a matter of practice?"

"When I'm this way, practice doesn't matter. Not with you." He glanced away and took a long drink of his tea.

"What does this mean for me?"

He looked at me again. "It means very little, save for you being obliged not to repeat any of what you've seen." His threats carried negligible weight in his current persona, simply going through the motions of Moriarty. He really was just Jim.

"Don't you want to live normally on these days?"

He crinkled his nose. "I don't think that to be wise, considering all the work I have to do."

"I could help." He raised his eyebrows. "I'm serious - I'm already staying here for the while. There's no reason why I couldn't move in here, or into another apartment nearby, and keep track of the smaller stuff. I mean, surely I can text orders and answer calls?"

Jim pursed his lips, moving them from the left to the right. He locked eyes with me. "You'll have even less time to go and do dirty work than you do now. You'll have to answer clients and note down everything they say, repeat it to me, call them back with what I've said word-for-word, all so that I can do what?"

I shrugged. "Live, Jim."

His lips parted. He looked to his tea then back at me, gaze stuttering upon meeting my eyes.

"Why on earth would I want to do that, Sebastian?" He challenged quietly, hardly a challenge at all.

"Because I know you're even more cold and twisted than me, but I also know that you're just a kid. On days like these, you don't have to be anything more."

Jim's expression was unreadable, face blank but eyes flicking all over like a fuzzy television. Then, he grinned. Not a strained, practised evil smile, nor a small smirk of quietly-brewing malice. Just toothy, cheeky and playfully catlike.

Just Jim.


	3. The Third

It wasn't long after I'd first seen Jim as Jim when he was 18 that we developed our long-standing routine for those days. We would wake of our own accord as usual and then breakfast together. If Jim had awoken much before me, or had been working all night, there would be a prepared and often cold cup of milky, sugared tea in my place at the bar counter. If he had only been awake a few minutes before me - he was never later than me - I would take the chance to make Jim his awful lemon tea whilst he made slow work of a French breakfast pastry. The easiest way to know who Jim was on any given morning was to see if he was eating. During his Moriarty days, he seemed to run on desperate need to stimulate his mind and little else. Jim days were rarer, once a week at the very most, but I did prefer them even though I had to take on a lot more work. I felt almost guilty for preferring Jim to the Boss. It was the Boss who employed me, the Boss who paid me and the Boss who gave me a room in his apartment rent-free. I wasn't paid to make friends with the Boss, but I couldn't help having a favourite half.

One day, I discovered that Jim wasn't made up of halves.

The weeks previous, he had focused most of his attention on a cocky new detective; Sherlock Holmes. It was all Jim had talked about and all that I was instructed to observe by the Boss. Jim thought he was a most magnificent amusement. He pored over his work, how sloppy he was at it, how smart he thought he was, how superior he believed himself to be, "just because Mummy and Daddy's money meant that at 11 he could become a dismal version of me".

Both of us knew that this Holmes was no match for Jim, never would be, but Jim's jealousy remained nevertheless. Never was he envious of Holmes' abilities or lack thereof - he knew that his own could spit on those of this new hero - but he chewed himself up over how young this boy had been. Jim was 19, Holmes 18 and both were as famed as each other. And Holmes had started his work at 11.

Jim became obsessed with Holmes. He transferred to myself and other staff almost all work except his plans for toying with Holmes. I struggled to keep up with it all, in water way over my head and weighted with so much work. Jim hadn't outwardly been Jim in a long time, spending all hours of every day on his screens, barely eating and never speaking. It seemed to me to be mostly just another game, just one that he was obsessed with this time. I didn't suppose it was very different. He'd found someone who made his games refreshing and new. Despite his jealousy, the Boss could have someone take care of Holmes if he became too much of a problem and Jim could take his mind off of the matter and give the work to me if he felt overwhelmed.

The trouble lay, I eventually discovered, in Jim's third state. In fact, I discovered this trouble lying fully-dressed in a bath of hours-old tepid water, staring into the bathroom light, motionless.

I'd never seen him like this. I didn't know which version of himself he was; no familiar body language, no voice, no sole expression playing on his face. He made no acknowledgment of me, the water silent around him and filled up to the corners of his eyes, submerging half of his face. Even as he breathed, his chest rose and fell in such shallow movements that the water didn't even ripple. 

Had he heard me, under all that water? Could he see me in his peripheral vision as he stared at the light? Would he tear me apart once he came around for invading his privacy? I took a step closer to the tub.

His body snapped into a sitting position, water crashing out of the tub, as he clasped both hands over his ears and screamed.

My body surged forward, detached from my mind. I knew this could be Jim or it could be Moriarty. I reached for him anyway, grabbing underwater to hook one arm under his legs and curl one around his back. The Boss would have had me beaten to death for touching him, yet I lifted him up and out of the tub anyway, still rocking and screaming. I took him to my room, unbothered by the moisture quickly wicking into a puddle on my sheets.

His screaming had tamed a little, reduced to pained groaning through clenched teeth with his body still tensed and shaking, eyes squeezed shut. I sat him up, trying my hardest to block out the sound, and peeled off his sopping jacket. He would be freezing. Better to be killed for undressing him than let him freeze on top of whatever was troubling him so much. I draped the blazer over the back of my desk chair, most likely unsalvageable, and returned to shed him of his shoes and socks. The laces were difficult to untie as his body spasmed and jumped from his head to his toes and the leather was waterlogged and bloated. At long last, I set them down on the floor next to the desk chair. 

I surveyed him briefly. I didn't want to undress him further. He was in great distress, clutching at himself and taking shuddering breaths which he exhaled with agonised sounds. If he thought I was taking advantage of his state…

I would deal with the consequences it brought. For now, the Boss was cold. And when the Boss was cold, his servant did everything in his power to remedy him.

The tie, shirt and trousers all came off in time and with great struggle. His body had not loosened a bit since he'd rocketed up, screaming, and his locked joints made it a cumbersome task to remove his trousers. I deliberately, visibly averted my eyes as I did so. His eyes were still shut tight, so I spoke instead.

"I'm not looking, Boss. Just making you less cold, okay?"

He hissed at my voice as if he had been cut but didn't turn away from me. Though, given the stiffness of his body, that did not equal his consent. I left briefly to fetch a new, dry blanket from the airing cupboard and draped it over him to cover his form. His shivering lessened a fraction and, seeing no more I could do without distressing him further, I left the room with the door ajar.

For the next hour, I worked doubly hard on all of the work that had been transferred to me, finishing most of the day's jobs in case I had to take on the other half of the work too. I made a deal with myself to wait for one hour; I didn't want to leave him for too long and I didn't want to return too early and overwhelm him. At minute 55 I had succeeded in biting my fingernails bloody and tapping my feet so fast that they cramped and thus decided to spend the last five minutes making tea with lemons to bring to Jim.

When I pushed the door further open, quiet and cautious, I initially thought he was asleep. Cocooned in the blanket, hands poking out the top and holding it in place, he looked exhausted. His face seemed slightly puffy and saddened, especially around his eyes. His body was no longer tense or shaking, but floppy and wasted. I set the teacup down - Chinese blue and white willow pattern - on the bedside table and crouched in front of Jim. His eyes cracked open and betrayed his feigned sleep. They were pink, bloodshot and raw. The sight weighed heavily on me. Moriarty, wielder of sadistic power, bringer of grisly chaos, in my blanket and drained of everything.

"Eleven," He croaked, barely audible.

"What's that, Boss?"

"He was _fucking_ eleven!" He lashed out and swiped the teacup onto the floor, whereupon it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces and lemon slices.

"That's okay."

"How?" His teeth were ground together. "How!"

"Because you're better than him. You know he'll never catch up to you."

"Of course I know it. But what if he…"

"He won't."

"But what if he does?"

"I'll shoot him."

"Noo, 'Bastian…" He was trailing off more than usual, sounding slurred and fuzzy. "Noo, bring him to me and let me watch you…"

"Beat the shit out of the bastard?"

"Quite so." He smiled in a watery sort of way. I exhaled a light laugh to encourage him. His mouth spread a fraction wider, showing a little of his toothy grin. Then, he spotted the shards of fine china scattered all over and his mood spun again. "Moran!" Oh, no more 'Bastian. "What the fuck have you done to my willow teacup?"

"Boss, you-"

"Did you not bring it to me, knowing how I was? Did you not think I might have done that, doofus? Did you not?" He roared.

"I did. Sorry, Boss." 

I bent to pick up the shards one by one. A sharp kick to my ribs toppled me in the process. I looked up to see him, still in nothing but boxers but with his face dark and twisted in anger, his eyes aflame in fury. He grasped my shirt collar and tugged, commanding me to stand. He shoved me against the wall by my shoulders so that my neck would fall back and throw my head against it. I made no moves to resist. He stood before me, breathing hard, eyebrows screwed up, fists clenched. Then he buried those fists in his hair and tugged, dropping to the floor on his haunches. And he screamed. Once more, he screamed for the madness within him and madness of losing control of it. He paused, took in a shaky breath, and screamed again. This time, he rose up from the floor as he screamed, leaning forward into me as he did so. By the time he was at full height, his head was in my chest and he was sobbing. I held him tight to me, solid as his mind melted and evaporated, froze and crumbled all at once.

"Jim," I addressed him, confident that he wouldn't murder me for assuming his state and happy that, even if he did, I wouldn't mind. "You could have entered your scene at one hundred and eleven and you'd still be better than that Holmes bastard, right? I'm not gonna ask you to stop using him as a distraction. I know you need what you need but I'm gonna make a suggestion, okay? You're the genius so you can figure it all out but, whatever you plan for him, you're gonna ruin him. You're gonna turn the adoring press against him, you're gonna turn his slobbering fans against him, you're gonna turn whatever friends he has against him, okay? I want you to have fun by ruining him, Jim, but whilst he can go on, he's a problem for you. Make him the final problem you ever have to face."

\----

In his demeanour, he didn't seem as though anything had changed. We didn't discuss what had happened to him, why he had reacted so strongly, what it meant that I had taken care of him in that state. We also didn't discuss if he was going to chop me up as penance for touching and undressing him, which was a silver lining. He didn't speak of the Holmes kid nearly as often, only informing me every so often that his years-long plan for his demise was forming more and more all the time. Observations of Holmes were carried out by other staff and only brought to either of us when something of significance happened which was, in comparison to Jim's prowess, a rare occurrence. As a result, Jim's stress and obsession seemed to be on the decline and my workload was easing. 

Months passed like this. Some days, Jim would be Jim to such an extent that he would only work in the mornings on the most confidential and difficult plans and send the rest to other staff, leaving his afternoons free for him to be 19.

He rarely wanted to be 19 alone. Despite me being 26, he would always call me over to the white, blocky expanse of the sofa and tell me to "come be a teenager" with him. We would watch cheesy, dirty movies or tacky horror films with cheap cider and badly-made "vodka and…" drinks. Jim would scoff at the acting, the overenthusiasm of the movie sex (though I'd never known of him bringing anyone home) and how the methods of torture could be made more enlightening. He complained and ridiculed throughout the whole film, but would watch the exact same types of films on teenage days, when he would mock again, throw his popcorn at the screen and jeer, laddish. Then he would look at me, his chin high in indignance, though he rarely looked at me in the eyes. Even when he was the Boss, he had been avoiding eye contact for a while. I didn't want to send him into an unwanted conversation by asking if the stress was getting in his head again, so I never commented.

But I never forgot it. I never forgot the day he broke down and that, behind the anguish and the fury and the great unrest in his eyes, there was a deep warmth as he looked up at me whilst I held him. I never forgot that the warmth sparked in those eyes each time we made momentary eye contact before his gaze flicked smoothly to something else. I hated to think that I was making him uncomfortable. I wasn't sure what I'd done, exactly. I knew he was upset with me for what I'd done on that day, but to not even look in my eyes…

The worst was that he didn't even tell me what had made him so wary of me. I would fix it instantly if he had. All he was doing was confusing me; spending a great deal of time with me but making it clear that he was uncomfortable with me, keeping his distance on a small scale.

Maybe it was a test. Yes, that could be it. It was a test to see how far I would go to protect the Boss. Would I disobey direct orders, even in the form of friendly requests, and risk his anger in order to prove that I was sorry for overstepping boundaries? Of course I would. Starting that day, I set out on a mission to do whatever it took to prove my loyalty to the Boss' wellbeing above my own. No more teenage days, no more friendly banter, no more stepping out of line of how I was supposed to act as an employee under Moriarty.

No more being friends. He was testing my servitude and I would give up my favourite half of him to prove that I could impress him.


	4. Go Home, Moran

The following day, I left for a job with my clothes, laptop and wallet packed into my duffel bag under my kit. I didn't return to his apartment afterwards. I took out the apartment opposite without having to give more than my name and fingerprint. I had been entitled to my own apartment since starting in the personal security role but I had previously elected to stay with Jim in order to be a faster reaction if anything were to happen. Now I knew that Jim couldn't be around me at the moment. I had overstepped the boundaries and now Jim, the most dangerous man in London, couldn't keep eye contact with me.

I would prove to him that I could keep behind the lines.

This apartment was a great deal smaller than Jim's sprawling open-space deal and was barely furnished. It had white walls, grey floors and square furniture like the opposite apartment plus a complete kitchen-dining-living area and a bedroom with plain, inoffensive white sheets. It was fine, with all of the modern comforts that I could find use for; an expensive stereo, large wall-mounted TV, windows stretching from one side of the wall to the other and an automatic light and temperature system. And something was still missing.

I entered the bedroom, unpacked my laptop and set it down on the desk, the room a slightly scaled down version of my bedroom at Jim's. My old bedroom. I started slow work at communicating with clients on Moriarty's behalf but my mind kept detaching from it. I rubbed my eyes and shut the laptop lid. Focus. I lifted the lid again and started typing out a message to a client. The words continued to escape me. What was I writing about again? I shut the lid.

I decided to take a break for a few minutes and let my guilty feelings calm down before I delved into the work again. I filled the kettle and set it to brewing before searching the cupboards for a teacup. I found cutlery in the left drawer, cooking tools in the right drawer and remotes for the stereo, TV, lights and heating system in the middle. In the cabinets were dinner plates, pasta bowls and cereal bowls, wine glasses, champagne flutes, whiskey glasses and shot glasses, boxes of cereal, bags of rice, packets of noodles and a jar of tea bags. At long last, I opened the end cabinet to two plain white mugs and a note, written by Jim before the plans for my role had even been completed. He had expected me to stay here. Maybe he really didn't want me to share with him in the first place. I unfolded the note.

_ Moran, _

_ Get back to work. _

_ M. _

I caught the distorted reflection of my face in the toaster and realised I was grinning like an idiot. I folded the note back up and slipped it into my pocket to save somewhere and closed the cupboard door, deciding against having tea. It wasn't the same, anyway, without dainty teacups decorated in roses or poinsettias or leaves or tigers. I returned to the room and got back to work, only a little faster than before.

The buzz of my phone pulled me from my absent thoughts without me even realising I had disconnected again.

_ Moran, _

_ Pick up a delivery from 5 Arne St. _

_ Be armed with a handgun. _

_ This job is nearer. You shouldn't take so long to return. _

_ M. _

All of a sudden I felt dizzy. "You shouldn't take so long to return." Should I have told him that I had moved? Should I tell him why? Would that ruin the point of the test if he knew I was doing it for his approval rather than out of loyalty?

_ Yes, Boss _

_ I will return to the opposite apartment. I have moved. _

_ Moran. _

I clipped a holster onto my belt, slipped a concealed blade up my hoodie sleeve and pulled the hem over the shape of the handgun. Leaving the apartment, I took a long, wistful glance at Jim's door. Reinforced white wood, plain except for the PIN lock and biometric scanner, just like the door opposite. My door opposite, I reminded myself. I was making the right decision. I was proving that I could protect the Boss regardless of my own feelings. I wasn't paid to be his friend, I was paid to be a diligent employee.

So, like a diligent employee, I tore my eyes away, descended to ground level and took a cab to the address.

When I returned - gun still full, knife still clean and a heavy briefcase in my hand - I dropped the delivery off at Jim's door, knocked and waited. And waited. And waited. I pressed my ear to the door but heard nothing, not even typing.

"Boss?" I called out to no answer. What if he was in trouble? What if someone had broken in whilst I was gone? What if Jim was-

I unholstered the handgun, familiarising myself with the weight of it, the shape of the grip, where exactly the trigger was. I took a deep breath, punched my PIN into the pad and lowered my eye to the scanner. Before I could look into the camera, the keypad buzzed. 

_ INVALID PIN. _

Fuck. No. Had my movements been too frantic at first? I typed the code in again, fingers heavy and deliberate.

_ INVALID PIN. _

I had an override, of course, linked to the door via a separate system so that I could bypass any hacking or tampering with my PIN. Locating the little button and receiver on the size of the eye scanner, I spoke my name clearly and awaited the click of the door releasing.

_ OVERRIDE DENIED. _

He wasn't letting me in. A heavy feeling slid down my throat and settled in my stomach. I felt sick. New letters came into the scanner screen, one at a time.

_ G-O-H-O-M-E-M-O-R-A-N _

Home. I supposed I didn't really have one. I knew I wasn't welcome to have one with Jim. The door opposite was so very much the same as Jim's; the same colour, locks, scanner, keypad, all leading to a scaled-down copy of the same layout with the same hard, square furnishings in the same whites and greys. And so different. So different in the way that there was only one bedroom, made for the personal security to stay close to the Boss. Not two, where I could stay with Jim and make him tea and laugh so much at nothing at all and let him have the youth that he'd always worked too hard to experience. So different in the way that there was something missing, I'd noticed it immediately even amongst the complete furnishings. No strewn papers to watch out for before sitting anywhere, putting anything down or walking around with shoes on. So different because it was just me, already too solitary and silent after less than a day without laughs or words or superhuman typing. No Jim.

It hit me. All at once, it heaved out of my lungs and rippled through my bloodstream, wrenching at my heart. It hit me. I dropped the briefcase outside Jim's door, limp and numb and only vaguely knowing he would come collect it once I had left. I unlocked the opposite apartment, I stepped forward, I stopped, I shut the door, I heard it click.

My legs fell out from under me and I barely felt my body slam to the floor and my head flop back against the door. Now the wave had hit, it wouldn't stop crashing over me. I hadn't been feeling so uneasy due to guilt for crossing the line, not for being disrupted from my usual routine, not even for fear of being dismissed. The wave rose higher each time I capsized below it. I felt uneasy because there was no Jim and somewhere along the way after nearly three years' service, stupidly, selfishly…

I had fallen in love with the Boss.

I gasped, fighting against the drowning. "How long?", my mind offered first. How long had my motives lain in anything other than my duty to Moriarty? I counted back. When had it changed from friendly connection and concern to this? I recalled, my chest regaining a warmth in the same shape as him even months after, it must have been when I'd touched him for the first time. Really touched him. Held him to me as he clung to my shoulders with his head burrowed into my sternum, hiding what was quickly dousing my shirt in salt water. Months ago. Months. No wonder he'd been acting differently since then. Had he noticed? Was he disgusted? Did he realise how far I was beneath him? He wouldn't even keep eye contact.

My arm swung, a harsh metallic sound split the silence, there was a considerable dent in the unused toaster and my handgun was now in the middle of the kitchen, spinning a little. My hand, now empty, lay limp on the floor. I needed a drink. Jim wouldn't approve. My head was buzzing all too much and I needed to make it swell with liquor. Jim didn't like alcohol. My heart was beating far too fast and I needed to stopper up my veins with poison. Jim never wanted me to get drunk.

Jim didn't really want me at all anyway.

\----

A pounding ache twisted behind my eyes and I was awake, clutching my head. My eyelids were heavy, shielding my eyes from the sharp sting when I met the light zipping into the room through gaps in the curtains. My mouth was dry, having not touched a sip of water for all of last night. My head thumped. What time was it? The harsh red light. The numbers. The clock.

_ 10:32 _

I lunged forwards, almost toppling myself. Breakfast for Jim. Pastry, tea. Food for Jim. He wouldn't eat unless- Step. Step. Door open. Kitchen.

Oh.

No Jim, just a trail of blood spots on the floor, the offending blade and a toppled barstool. No Jim. And one less poor bastard in the world as a result. I stepped over the same stool that I'd tripped on the night before and hastily filled a glass of water, drawing imaginary patterns in the blood route as I relieved my throat a little. I would clean it up later. Opening the door, I saw that some lowly staff had already done so with any trails leading to the apartment. I shut the door again and laid my aching head against the cool wood.

It was not at all possible to eat right now. I couldn't even bear to boil the kettle to make a cup of tea. I sat at the desk in the bedroom, staring at the laptop. No work, not even what was left unfinished from yesterday. I checked my phone. No targets to take out. Back to the laptop. Refresh.  _ 0 new messages _ . Refresh. Refresh.  _ 0 new messages.  _ My phone. The last message I sent to Jim.  _ Sent 17:10.  _ Restart.  _ Sent 17:10. _

Some things, I couldn't refresh.

All day it was the same. I went shopping, since I had no staff to do it for me, and I cooked dinner. All week it was the same. I started a new TV series, incapable of watching a movie on my own, and then finished the series and started another. All month it was the same. I got drunk countless times, woke up to more blood on the floor, licked the knife clean, dismantled and reassembled my guns, counted the money in my wallet, checked my phone… Always nothing.

Until it wasn't.

A buzz. My heart dropped through the floor and broke through the ceiling simultaneously. I read the text.

_ I won't be a teenager tomorrow. _

_ One more movie? _

No "Moran". No "M". Just Jim's apparent upcoming birthday and one more "teenage day." One more movie.

My fingers trembled over the screen, my heart was racing, my mind fuzzy. I looked down at the mess I'd become.

_ Can I wash and dress first? _

_ Moran. _

I'd signed off as a precautionary measure. I didn't want to lose this chance. I waited for approval in Jim's next text.

1 minute.

2 minutes.

3 minutes.

A buzz.

_ Just come home. _


	5. Happy Birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a little longer to post cos I wasn't sure where to start it, continue it or end it :P Sorry if anyone was waiting!

"They always freeze in place like idiots," Jim complained half-heartedly, looking straight through the horror movie on the TV. On screen, a man who I couldn't name was stuck still and being charged at by some grotesque being that I didn't care about.

"Yeah." I averted my eyes. On the coffee table was a cup of milky, sugared tea that Jim had set there before I'd arrived. From what I could see, it was slightly too strong and already a little lukewarm. Just like he always made it for me in the mornings. I hadn't touched it.

"Look at that - holding a shotgun and not pulling the trigger!" He strained his voice, feigning interest but just sounding a little hysterical. He had chosen to sit in the armchair next to the sofa and not next to me as he always had done. Each time he spoke I looked over involuntarily and saw how he was so removed, having gone so far as to break his routine of years in order to sit away from me, and noticed how he pointedly did not meet my gaze.

The movie reached a quiet point amongst the supposed horror and gore. I could hear Jim's fingers on the leather of the armchair as he tapped a rhythm. He finished, reached for his tea and squished one of the lemons before lifting it to his lips, gaze drifting absently. We locked eyes. His eyes flickered in place for a moment. Then they snapped away to his lap, sitting with one slender leg crossed over the other, hands gripping the chair.

"I'm terribly cross with you, Sebastian." His voice was quiet and his gaze remained 

I pressed my lips together. Jim didn't really talk about his feelings if he wasn't inches away from murdering me for taking out a target with a messy shot.

"I know." Jim didn't respond. "That's why I moved over there."

His jaw set firm and his eyes hardened, arched brows coming to a harsh, tight knit. For a moment, his face started to redden, his anger mounting, grinding his teeth with his fingers strained white in gripping the chair. "So, are you admitting that you did it to upset me?" He hissed. "That's low even for you, Sebastian." His voice pitched around my name and his face set back to slack and pale. His eyes grew heavy-lidded and dull.

"No, of course I didn't. I moved so I wouldn't upset you, you know?"

"No, Sebastian, I do not."

I gulped hard on nothing, my throat dry. "I knew you were mad at me anyway. About the thing that happened with the bath?" He looked at me incredulously. "Sorry for bringing it up."

He opened his mouth, closed it, pulled his suit jacket smooth, and directed his gaze closer to me, looking at my knees. "Sebastian." He looked back at his lap. "What was there for me to be upset about, with you?"

"You smashed the teacup I gave you?"

He grimaced. "What was there for me to be upset about upon remembering after it was over?"

I blinked. "I undressed you, Jim."

"You told me what you were doing and it saved me from the added feeling of chill that would have worsened my…" He stopped.

"And I touched you."

_"I_ held onto _you_ and, as a matter of fact, it's admirable that you let me do so, considering…"

We both sat in silence for a while. The movie music was all too loud and crackled between us, sizzling at my ears.

"...And you're not mad at me for anything I did with the bathroom stuff?"

Jim's brow furrowed. "Is that what you thought it was? Did you really think that I was upset with you, suspended all work and contact for months because you helped me?"

"I did." My heart hammered, thrumming from behind my ribs, inside my veins and through my neck, escaping in a slight stammer when I spoke. "Why were you mad at me?"

"You moved." He closed his eyes and sipped his tea. "You moved directly after I'd been in that state, after you'd seen me and had to take care of me and put up with my being blank and then furious and then…" 

He'd been more violent with me before. He'd held guns to my head and backed me onto ledges of buildings, coming as close as possible before I plummeted, knowing I wouldn't push him back. He'd thought I'd left because I couldn't deal with him and his troubles. He sighed as he opened his eyes and set his tea down. He turned his head fully in the opposite direction to me and spoke again, barely more than a whisper.

"You broke my heart."

Months ago, I would have scoffed. He would have said it in jest. I would have said _"You have one?"_ and he would have shot me a faux death glare, would have done it looking into my eyes.

Now, I almost crumbled.

Did it mean- No, it couldn't possibly. It was just an expression. But could it- No. He was hurt by it, understandably. I felt like a dickhead for not seeing the signs, not seeing how he could have seen it, not remembering how he hated abandonment. Killing made him in control of it. I'd taken away the control of the most dangerous man in… God knows where now. Worse, I'd done it after witnessing the sole, agonising case of true weakness that he had ever revealed. And it had hurt him. I had hurt Jim Moriarty. Where many would feel power, I felt stuck in deep mud, trodden on by a thousand people, hoping for someone to just stamp through my skull. How selfish I was to jump to conclusions for security in my own personal desires. I didn't know what to say.

"Sorry," I chose to say, not anywhere close to summing up my thoughts. "I am sorry. I didn't think you were hurt, I thought you were mad. You never do touching like that."

He licked his lips and offered a weak false smile. "It isn't really on-brand for the Moriarty name to give out warm cuddles and reassurance." Even so, he'd wrapped his arms around his ribs somewhat, holding onto his elbows.

"Do you want- do you want a hug?" Jim's eyes darted to mine, forgetting himself. He looked away in an instant, eyes wide. "Sorry, you just look like you nee-"

"-No," He snapped. He returned to look at the screen in silence, clearly not even watching the movie. I would have preferred him to retaliate as the Boss with a gun to my head. At least I would know what to expect; what to say; what to do. _"Yes, Boss."_ , _"No, Boss.", "Heading there now, Boss."_. If Moriarty put a gun to my head, a knife to my throat, a noose around my neck, I would close my eyes and let him. Moriarty was the machine of business, cruelty and no loose ends.

Jim was the man, the boy, not even 20 just yet. Jim had feelings, I knew now, more than just laughing and sarcasm and wit. Jim was a person - I never really did very well with those once the banter ended. And on top of that he worked himself nearly to death in order to fight his writhing mind. He was rippled with violent thoughts with nowhere to break apart except within himself or amongst the world. He was moulded into a caricature of the more troubled side of him which demanded a deep focus on his violent distractions, lest they fail him and force him back into his mind. 

Staring down a gun with moments left to live was easy. Looking at Jim, so shut off from me now - his eyes looking straight through the TV screen and never at me for very long, sat as far away from me as he could without being bizarre, his black eyes softer than Moriarty's yet somehow holding even less than the that void - was a deeper, rawer pain than I had ever felt, plunged straight through my chest and dragged down to split me open.

I knew already, before the movie had finished, that the visible, tangible Jim would be lost to the world for a long, long time.

\----

I moved back in, knowing I was moving in with just Moriarty now. Once the film had ended, he had taken his tea to the sink, took his screens off of standby and started to work, before the day was even over. He had chosen to act as the Boss now, regardless of if Jim was still there or not. He had chosen to act as Moriarty every day, to me and the rest of the world, for years. I guessed maybe he could set it as his permanent character, even if his mind didn't command it, as if it was controlled by a simple button press. Maybe it was, for him.

While he worked, I brought everything of mine from the opposite apartment back into his and put it all back in each place in my room. It felt better, being here; more like home. _"Just come home,"_ Jim had said. I knew I shouldn't think about that too much in case my selfish feelings came back. It was too late. And come back they did.

No. No place for it. I shook my head and plugged my laptop in, needing to distract myself with work. Was this a fraction of how Jim felt when he had to be Moriarty? Head so full of thoughts and pain and noise that he had to devote all his attention to simpler, crueller things that didn't give him enough rest to think about his own feelings? I knew from what little Jim had told me that, on Moriarty days, he woke up with white noise in his head, spilling down him, filling him up to pour out of his ears. On those days he had to be the Boss. He wouldn't be able to drown out the noise otherwise. He called it "boredom" when he had nothing to do, left alone with his mind crackling. He called it boredom so he could call doling out cruelty "fun". In a way, it was. I certainly knew that, the rush of peace and ecstasy reacting in my veins after a kill, and Jim felt the same. His release was stronger though, more addictive as it came with an extra high of pulling him out of his mind for a moment. When he plummeted back into his skull again, each time was more unbearable than the last. He called it boredom. I don't think anyone anywhere could really define it and I don't think they ever will. But he was "bored" living his own life when he couldn't sufficiently twist and harm those of others.

But it was his birthday tomorrow and he'd never shared that information with me before. So I brought him a toy.

The man himself was unremarkable. I'd waited until midnight, wanting to make it a real birthday present, cornered the nearest person into an alley and pushed my body weight onto him, arm pressed to his neck. He passed out easily, clearly unused to violence and pain. I hoped he'd turn out to be a screamer. He was light enough for me to carry for the short distance to the cab. I always called for a Moriarty cab, even had the number on speed dial. They knew me - even if they didn't, they never asked questions and hardly glanced at what you brought in the cab with you. I tied his legs together in the cab and strapped his hands behind his back, rope fastening his arms to his body. I didn't get him. It wouldn't be so much fun. Jim didn't usually like "getting his hands dirty" but once in a while, with the right weapon of a sharp hunting blade and the right background music of a good screamer, he came alive a little more with blood on his hands.

By the time I'd reached the apartments he was starting to rouse. The cabbie offered to carry him to the elevator, which I tipped her a great deal of money for, managing to drop him outside Jim's door before he regained too much consciousness. I entered my PIN with eagerly shaking fingers, giddy with anticipation. Jim, still at his screens, didn't look up when I shuffled the body through the door, perhaps not even hearing at the time. Careful not to act too suspicious, I slipped away to my room and brought out my massive hunting knives. I came back through to the kitchen and dropped them onto Jim's desk with a loud _clunk._ He scowled at me, looking appalled at my impertinence. He opened his mouth, presumably to ask me what the hell I was doing, _Moran,_ when the man groaned loudly and uttered an audible "What?". His black eyes still held enough shine in them for me to know that he wasn't yet Moriarty. I gestured to the knives and then nodded to the man on the floor who was wriggling and making distressed noises, having not seen us yet. Jim peered over his screens and saw him. His eyes gleamed with a wicked spark and his mouth stretched into a tame smirk.

"Happy birthday, Jim."

And the smirk spread into that wide, playful, catlike grin that had _Jim_ written all over it.


	6. Contracts

He sent me to Japan on the day after his birthday. His eyes were matte black and he still wouldn't look straight at me. He'd left the plane tickets for both ways, a fake passport and forged legal documents permitting me to stay for the month that it would take for me to finish the job. There were three Japanese phrase books which I wouldn't need anyway since the more effective form of communication for me was through bullets to the head, knives through the throat or fists to the jaw. Jim was the charisma, when he wanted to act that part. This day he was silent as usual, save for the usual white noise of typing, and did not register me as I picked up the papers from the kitchen counter and filed them into my bag of clothes and gear. It was funny, I thought, that the airport staff would turn a subtle blind eye to the obscene amount of illegal firearms and other assorted weapons in my duffel bag, yet I still needed the "proper" documents to enter the country. I supposed that, if Jim could forge papers so easily, it would be unnecessary overkill to take over the entire migration system of a country, even if it could be done with a single email.

There were important people in Japan; important people everywhere, in fact. Some needed to be watched or _persuaded_ or killed or even pushed over to our side. I didn't really know much about what was going on and I didn't really need or care to. I answered client messages with prepared Moriarty responses embroidered in code and obscured by a veil of ambiguity. Yet the client always understood and for that it was a fine art. He would mock me for saying it but Jim never ceased to amaze me, even with something as simple as this. He was always amazing to me and therefore I never wondered about what was really, truly happening and why. Jim never got a plan wrong and Moriarty never failed to execute it. So for Jim Moriarty I, too, would execute with one order. And despite all I was paid for my labour, I would do it for free to feel the mingling rush of excitement and peace after taking the kill and the relief of doing it right and being able to come home. Home. It was with Jim, certainly. I liked to believe that Jim thought the same, at least now. He'd texted me to _"Go home, Moran,"_ once and yet, only two days ago, had told me to _"come home."_ I guessed it was only fitting that both "homes" were different places. It was only fitting that my home was wherever Jim said it was. I would return to whichever place Jim told me to regardless of my own mind, I would come back to him gladly if he allowed me to and I would die if he wished that of me. Today, I would depart for Osaka at 12pm, land in London again at 1am the next month and, from there, my home was where Jim Moriarty wanted it to be. For now, it was here and I was glad.

I glanced at my watch. _6:10._ Leaving my bag at the door, I made my way back to the kitchen, poured out a generous bowl of cereal for myself and cut up a lemon, brewing a kettle for the tea at the same time. I poured myself a mug, splashed with milk and liberally sugared, and spooned four lemons into a teacup decorated with Japanese shūji calligraphy. Making sure to squeeze out as much juice as possible, I poured Jim's tea into the cup. Minding every step for quietness to not disturb his work, I slid over to Jim's desk and set the teacup down. He didn't look up and I didn't know if he would drink it. Most days, he didn't. He let it go cold before he shifted his gaze from his screens and, by then, wouldn't care enough to part from his work long enough to make one. I always left one there anyway, each morning.

  
  


No more tea for him for a month now. Would he eat? Would he even drink? Surely he must; I only moved in when he was 17 and he'd been working since he was 15 - if he couldn't eat on Moriarty days without being prompted then he wouldn't have lived so long, would he? Would he? Maybe I would text him to remind him to eat. He would probably kill me for harassing him if I texted once daily, let alone three times if I really wanted him to eat regular meals like he should. Maybe I would text him anyway.

I dipped the spoon into my bowl from my usual spot next to the fridge. From here, I could watch to see if he would take the tea or even a pastry that I'd placed there if I was feeling lucky. He could always feel my gaze on him and, if I stared for too long, would text me a gruesome threat if I didn't go back to _"chewing like a pig and leaving him be"._ I only ever sat next to him on Jim days and never even dared to come too close to the desk otherwise. Especially now, when he didn't even look at me when he was Jim. Maybe it was better that he would be Moriarty for a while since it wouldn't feel so different as he didn't really look away from his work for anything. I didn't know if I hoped that - after the month away - he would still be Moriarty long-term or if I wanted him to be ready to be Jim again. I didn't know what I hoped about anything really, I just had to take it one step at a time. Catch a cab, go to the airport, fly to Osaka, check into the hotel and spend every day doing surveillance on certain people, torturing others, killing some, recruiting a few. After that, as long as I was successful, I would return to the flat. And, whatever I really hoped for, being able to return after a month away - to any form of Jim Moriarty - would always be good enough for me.

He was good enough for me when I was on the plane, 3 hours into my flight as businessman Graham Hugh, and I received a text from him.

_Moran,_

_I might have such a naughty chat with your pilot. I think your plane might want to swim._

_M._

I sighed. He needed more work if he was bored enough to "joke" with me. I was no client and yet he was _chatting._ What was even worse than Moriarty silence was Moriarty chat. That was for new employees to be scared into submission or clients who strayed from the plan. It was apparently for Holmes, too, when Jim decided the time to meet with him. Whether or not he would really persuade the pilot into dropping the plane into the sea, it didn't matter to me.

_Can I help you with any work, Boss?_

_Moran._

_Moran,_

_I'm ever so horribly bored and you won't even talk to me? I am slain where I sit._

_M._

What was he playing at? He never used to text me like this.

_Why are you talking to me like I'm not an employee? You don't need to scare me into cooperating._

_Moran._

_Moran,_

_Have you forgotten so easily? You're a foolish boy. I didn't really need to use a sniper for this sort of surveillance-heavy job, I just needed you out of sight for the last month._

_M._

I froze. Blood rushed in my ears.

_I don't understand._

_Moran._

_Moran,_

_That is so very you, my dear. Your contract was for 3 years' work. Can you work out the rest or do you need my help?_

_You're done._

_M._

I dropped the phone and lurched forward in my seat. My head smacked against the seat in front of me, earning a dirty look from the woman next to me. I inhaled, closed my eyes, exhaled, inhaled. How could I not have noticed? Stupid. Stupid, stupid, _stupid!_ I clasped my hands over my face. I stopped breathing and counted down from 30, breathed in and out and then stopped breathing for a minute. I repeated this, doubled each time until I failed to reach 16 minutes. My heart still roared through my chest.

I stood up, drew the previously-ignored handgun from my jacket and fired at anything.

After that, the plane was mine.

\----

After the pilots had turned us around and dropped me back in London, all of the passengers mysteriously disposed of - truly unfortunate victims of a tragic accident - with everything wiped clean by Moriarty's omnipresent web, I returned to the apartment building. My key card worked at reception. My PIN worked on the elevator. The code and eye scanner worked at Jim's apartment. The only thing was, when I pushed the door open, it wasn't Jim's apartment anymore. It was clean of all papers; empty for all intents and purposes, simply a larger version of the impersonal flat opposite. It smelled of cleaning products and subtle pollution seeping through opened windows, not of cologne and hot computer dust and lemons. It wasn't Jim's anymore.

I looked around for a note on the cleared desk, looked in Jim's room that I'd never breached before, looked under the couch cushions. I stood up and paused. The crinkle of the note from the other apartment was audible in my pocket, always there. I went to the teacup cupboard, desperate for a copycat note. Opening the door sent a piece of paper twirling to the floor which I picked up, almost smiling.

_Moran,_

_You will return to this apartment without me. I have moved._

_M._

He was mocking my text from when I'd moved. I choked. My hands shook. I took out my phone, knowing he wouldn't respond but clinging to my naïvely religious belief that he'd read my message anyway.

_I won't go and find you if you don't want me to. I hope you have another bodyguard, Boss._

_Moran._

I turned my phone off entirely, not wanting to upset myself when I wouldn't receive a text alert, and returned to my laptop to send another few snipers to Japan. There was always work to be done outside of my own personal jobs, most of my own jobs being less challenging than what I should be sent out for, but Jim sent me there anyway. He knew I liked the thrill. And it did take at least three snipers to complete some of the jobs he would send me to do. For the three-month-long stint in Japan, I hired five women; two assassins and three spies. Other people tended to tire of sinful work. I never did.

All five women would be sent to Japan on different days with different airlines and nationalities that did not match their own. In the meantime, I still had to speak to a man in a great deal of debt who wanted to start a new life in Columbia. I still had to find a few mysterious enough unexplained deaths for Jim to play with for whatever reason. I still had to request from lower-level staff and then analyse the locations of several seemingly random targets before sending these to another anonymous contact. My phone was still a dead weight in my pocket, lifeless. I could almost smell it putrefying. I needed to check my messages. He wouldn't have texted back; he was punishing me for failing his mission, betraying his wishes for the contract, choosing to stay closer to him for the last three months. He wouldn't have texted back.

I took my phone out and powered it on.

It lit up in blue-black, brightened, displayed the company logo, played an animation, executed all the security measures, accepted all the passcodes, and showed the cartoon lock opening up. _22:12, MON 3. Notifications: LOW BATTERY - 10% Remaining. 0 new messages._ Zero new messages. I turned it off again.

The following day I made tea and cereal, contacted a few of the Japan workers, read emails, answered emails, found targets, turned my phone on, turned my phone off, turned it on again… Exhausted in the face of any more emails, I snuck into Jim's bedroom as if he would hear me and reprimand me. I wished he would do so. At least I would see him. He had presumably removed everything from his room; I knew this already since I'd searched it the day before looking for a note. Still, it felt more personal to be in his room now, without a purpose. I tried to imagine what it would have been like. Papers in the most inexplicable places, no doubt. Maybe even more computers in case the work could not wait for him to make it to the kitchen. I didn't suppose there would be nightclothes - he didn't seem to sleep very much at all, only using the bed for what must have been a mere couple of hours at most. His sheets were a predictable plain white. They must have been washed already. The floors, walls, blinds and surfaces had been scrubbed to remove any lingering scent of Jim. The apartment still reeked of bleach and empty air. The sheets must have been washed already yet, somehow, I found myself stumbling towards them. I held my breath, not wanting to spoil the surprise that I was certain wouldn't be coming. Grabbing both pillows, uncertain of which one Jim used, I buried my face deep between the two and breathed. And breathed. And breathed until my lungs stretched and screamed with straining volume.

It was Jim. Faint, masked under the cleaning smell, but undeniably raw Jim. Freshly-showered Jim with the shamelessly expensive shampoo and wash that smelled like almost nothing at all, overworked Jim with the sour prickling of sweat at the back of his neck that wicked against the pillowcase, human Jim with the scent of skin, life and _warmth,_ the kind that you can smell even when the person is gone. He hadn't washed the sheets. He'd done it on purpose. Did he know that I-

No time for that. In time, the scent on the sheets would slip into the air and fade away - no time. I took cling wrap from the kitchen drawer, scrabbling with the static mass of it, and bundled the pillows in it, airtight. I regarded the sheets but thought better of trying to wrap the entirety of the duvet like a lovesick madman obsessed with the proof of Jim's existence. Then I thought again.

Two hours and a trip to the shop later, the duvet was similarly encased in a squeaky plastic permanence. The bedding remained in Jim's room, waiting for me to become desperate once more. 

Each time I caved in and turned my phone on to no new messages, I marched to Jim's room, peeled back a little of the plastic wrap, took a long, controlled breath, resealed the bedding and got back to work in my own room. Since I'd returned from the aborted flight, I was receiving more work than ever. None of it was field work. I deserved that. Sometimes when I missed feeling the ecstasy and ease that came with the kill, instead of caving in and taking a victim of my own, I would take in Jim's fading memory through his pillows. I found that, now, this tangible reminder of Jim was even more potent than the exquisite feeling of making a kill.

So, in between receiving no contact from Jim and needing to feel a rush again, I came to Jim's room every single day for the next three months to drink in the insubstantial scent there. By the last month, the smell was fading so much that I removed all the cling wrap, abandoned it on the floor and slept face-down in Jim's bed every night, alone.

The day after my contract ended, I woke in Jim's bed as usual and opened my eyes to the sun streaming through the blinds as usual, casting light on my laptop which now lay on the desk in Jim's room as usual. I turned onto my back to see a pistol in my face.

"Your contract is over, my dear." Behind the gun, Jim's fingers were busted and scabbed over though he never really did manual work. Past his arm, his smile was huge but straining though he never had to use his intimidation smile with me once I was hired. Beyond his smile, his eyes were unreadable; shining in one moment and flat in the next, then lightened to brown and then plummeted to black. He'd grown used to letting himself be Jim. Being Moriarty for three months was now unsustainable. I looked back to the barrel pointed at my forehead.

"I like your suit," I replied.

"Armani." He offered a plastic smirk. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

"I live here, Boss."

"My dear, I don't think you will be living anywhere if you don't pack up everything you own and leave in the next minute and stop fooling yourself into thinking you're my employee."

"So we can't make a new contract? I am your best marksman."

"Cheeky. You're my most loyal pet - or, rather, you were - but now you're being such a nuisance and I would loathe to have to splatter you all over _my_ sheets." He raised his sleek eyebrows at the rumple of me in his bedding in a pointed manner.

"No more Jim?" I challenged, emboldened by some desperate hope that he would still want to employ me. He regarded me and smirked. "No more movies? No more being a teenager?" I almost added _with me?_ onto the end.

He faltered for a moment. "I'm 20." Then he caught himself and shifted back into one foot, moving his hand away a fraction to cock the gun. I took the chance.

I launched at his body to push him back and ducked just before a bullet wrenched from the gun and into the wall where my head might have been. Jim fought against me, wrestling his gun arm from my grasp as I continued to force him back out of the door he'd left open. Realising my grip wouldn't cease, he reached over in an attempt to cock the gun from where I was gripping his wrist. I took my other hand from where I was pushing him away and grasped his free arm, moving him back purely with body weight now. He struggled and writhed, kicking my shins with his pointy shoes and biting my fingers like a wild animal. He bared his teeth and snarled at me, tiny flecks of red glinting on his canines from where he'd drawn blood from my hand. His eyes were crazed and aflame but now undeniably reflected the light of the morning. On emotion, I loosened.

He seized that moment. His arms were free from me in an instant, gun held back in two hands now, cocked and ready. He was breathing hard and ragged and his wrist had been thinner between my fingers than I'd remembered. He ground his teeth hard before snapping his mouth open to speak.

For once, I cut him off.

"Jim." Simple. He paused. "Please eat."

He closed his mouth, scowled and tightened his grip around the pistol. When I said no more, his fingers grew slacker, his brow relaxed. Then he drew his eyebrows together, puzzled. He looked at the gun, then to his hands, slightly open now with the gun in between them, then to my face. Never to my eyes. He grumbled, rolled his eyes and tossed the gun into the air for me to catch. He spun on his heel and strode to where his screens were once more in the kitchen.

"You're good for another three years with the same situation and the same pay," He said as he walked away, louder and more assertive than he needed to be. He sat down and patted the surface next to him without looking back at me. "I want tea with lemons."

"Lemons with tea, you mean?"

"Don't you push it, dear 'Bastian."

But I could hear the smile floating on the thick accent of his voice.


	7. Eight and Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're all caught up to where we were in Chapter 1 now. The majority of this is set after the "love and lemons" talk.

Life remained after that. Jim's flat once more. Lemons and teacups once more. Emails and jobs and rifle in hand once more, all on Moriarty's orders. Life went back to the comfortable discomfort of the routine that I knew as normal - despite it being nothing of the sort. It was my normal. I was normal; stuck into gruesome work most of the time and testing my pain endurance in the gym when I wasn't busy. Moriarty was normal; giving me enough work to sink my teeth into and adding enough killing to keep me more than happy in spite of the work strain. Jim was normal; showing up for an afternoon every few weeks and chatting, making jokes, being witty. He still didn't look me in the eye, the action less obvious and deliberate as it had been, but still noticeable when I thought about it. I didn't know how I made him feel now, only that I'd hurt him seemingly permanently. I didn't know how hurt he was about other things either, only that he always locked the bathroom door so I couldn't discern on any day whether or not he was having an episode. On occasion, he stayed in the bathroom for hours, and it took me covering my clock so I wouldn't know how long he'd been gone not to intervene, coming out at long last in a bathrobe with his soaked clothes poorly concealed in a towel. When I'd inspect the scene after he'd holed up in his room for the rest of the morning or afternoon or night, there would be water flooding the floor, squelching in the bathmat and splashed up the walls. But no blood, so I chose to stay out of it. I didn't know why it had affected him so much, but I didn't want to make a wrong move again. So I simply didn't make a move at all.

Life remained normal for the year and beyond, rich with an abundance of assassinations, close-range murders and torture. And Jim. Jim didn't come around nearly as often as I'd like and I told myself it was because I wanted his mind to be at ease, not because I wanted to have more of the Jim I loved so much. He was 21 and I was 28 and at this point I didn't even deny it to myself anymore. I'd wake up with him on my mind, haunted by the ghosts of dreams of his lips on mine or nightmares of his blood on my hands. The first thing I'd do would be making his bitter tea and trying him with a pastry. The second thing I'd do would be watching him from afar as I ate, scanning him in case of issues or admiring the steep curve of his thin brows, the dark mystery of his heavy eyes, the sharp pout of his lips… Then I'd fill any tiny pocket of unoccupied space in my mind with Jim things whilst I executed orders for a kidnapping, a house fire or an accidental death.

One day, he was 21 and I was 28. That morning, Jim told me about the start of his empire and I had recounted the story he already knew about how I ended up here. He'd told me to kill him if he stopped taking lemons in his tea. Then he'd implied that he had the terrifyingly human ability to love. He hadn't been joking, lying or making a mockery of anything at all. I'd almost died on the spot. 

The next morning he'd been Moriarty once more but still I couldn't stop thinking about it. My thoughts scarcely drifted to anything else whilst I waited to pull the trigger on my first job of the day. The notion of Jim Moriarty having a _crush_ chased my attention round my head all the way back to the apartments after those hours of waiting. It tormented me as I received a second job just as I was on the cusp of rest. It weaved cruel hope into me as I simply took the order, wanting to please him.

I couldn't get it out of my head for weeks on end.

_"Love and lemons, don't you think I've gone mad already?"_

God, yes. No. Not nearly mad enough. When I finally came home at a stupid hour, Moriarty had a lemon-choked tea by his hand. Not madly in love, then. I passed him on my way to my room to answer a few emails before bed and studied his face. Wrought with concentration, one deep frown line by his eyebrow, curled so low it seemed to be part of his eye. Those eyes were predictably flat black and tinged blue by the screens though they reflected little light. He either didn't notice my interest or didn't care. Certainly not madly in love. Not like I had been for two years since he was 19. He hadn't picked up on it, presumably because he would never be looking for it and despite how much that hurt to know, I was thankful for it. I didn't want to make a show of it. And I wouldn't leave a sign that it was happening to me by way of lemons or lack thereof. 

Why lemons? Why, of all things to give a characteristically dramatic sign that Jim was in love, would it have anything to do with lemons? We made jokes about the disgusting habit, a staple of every morning when Jim was around, but it was more of an inside joke than a big deal to make a show of. Perhaps it wasn't about a show. Perhaps, just as Jim came out when his mind was more at ease, he no longer needed lemons when he could think about something else. Someone else. I should have known, in truth. Jim didn't seem to care very much for taste or texture - he ate simply out of need. Why had I not realised sooner that the lemons were just another tactic to focus his stray thoughts onto another source. If he… fuck, if _Jim Moriarty_ had a crush significant enough, it could act as an outlet to keep him away from his darkest thoughts. It could be useful.

I felt a pang of jealousy for the love interest that hadn't even developed yet. Whether or not they existed in that way yet, I felt bitter in my heart. It wasn't me, in any case. It couldn't have been. I'd known him since he was 17 and he'd always taken lemons each and every day. _Maybe he just doesn't feel it enough to wean off it yet,_ the lesser side of me called out, scrabbling for a nicer explanation. The logical side of me, which always hurt but never failed, contested that _he doesn't love you, he doesn't even look at you properly. How can you love someone and not want to admire them every second of every day like you always-_

Enough of that. I logged into my email and tried to push the hope and pain and want out of my mind. _INBOX: 5 NEW._ I sighed and rubbed my eyes, already seeming to hurt from the bright blue light behind the screen. Time to move all of that aside. Time to focus on the work. Time to be like Moriarty.

\----

I woke at 7am each day. Each day, I cut up a lemon and set four slices in one of Jim's many teacups, drenching the slices in fresh-brewed Earl Grey tea. Each day, I watched how many more slices Jim added to his cup, breath caught tight between my teeth and my throat. Four more. Every time, four more, just like it always had been ever since I'd moved in and noticed his tea habits. Each day, I swallowed the lump in my throat that seemed to grow daily and got on with trying to place a pastry by Jim subtly enough for it to appeal to him. Then I did my damn job.

In January he flew me to Japan, for real this time. This particular job would be short in comparison - only a month - but I worried all over again. I really doubted he would have eaten if I had actually been gone for three months last year. He needed to be healthy, if not for himself then for the business - how could he expect to keep a well-oiled and efficient enterprise if he was sick? I wished I had access to all that security footage and staff on hand to observe at all hours like he could, but I wasn't Moriarty and he would hate me to interfere.

So I got him another bodyguard for the month. Jim might have strung me up and skinned me alive for it or he might not have but, either way, I wanted to ensure his physical safety even if the bodyguard couldn't make him eat.

In the past there had been large, complex operations for which several of us marksmen had to cooperate so I was very vaguely acquainted with a few people with similar skill sets to me. I recalled the name of one man whom I'd been able to somewhat tolerate - Ramin Oscar. I had almost admired him, having noticed that he was actually rather competent in stealth and, as I'd learned by accessing a few low-importance files with my position, proficient in hand-to-hand combat. As I'd also learned more... intimately, on one night of the operation when he'd invited me into his hotel room, he was impressively strong, almost able to overpower me. He hadn't given me his number - he was a trained killer, not a fool who would become hung up on a one night stand - but I could find his email in the files I'd accessed and hire him for the month. I would pay for it out of my own excessive wages, it wasn't as though I had anything else to pay for anyway, and deal with however Jim would react.

I met up with him two nights before I would depart and vaguely briefed him on the security in the apartment. I left out a few details just in case he would betray Moriarty and did not mention Jim. Jim wasn't going to come out for him; all he needed to know was how to guard Moriarty. When he left, I took his bag of belongings for the month and set it in my room which I had already mostly cleared to pack my own travel bag. Bored in my now empty room, I unzipped the bag and peaked inside. T-shirts, jumpers, jeans, sweatpants and boots. Underneath, a disassembled rifle with attachments and a handgun. In the inner pocket, shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush. Dull. I discarded the bag of little entertainment and decided to have an early sleep. I would need it for when I broke the news to Moriarty in the morning.

Lemons, tea, lemon bowl, pastry, cereal. I tapped my fingers in a rapid rhythm on the bottom of my cereal bowl, analysing Moriarty at the counter. He was working as usual. How would I disturb him without making him kill me, especially to deliver the news that I'd interfered with how he would live whilst I was away? I jammed a spoonful of cereal into my mouth, chewing as loud as I could. He didn't move. I stirred the milk around, clanging metal on ceramic with an awful _ching!_ He kept typing. I sighed obviously and deliberately. 

He looked up, eyes on my chest.

"I'm your bodyguard, you know?" I started, clunky.

"I'm aware, Moran." So he was Serious Moriarty right now, still busy on the keyboard.

"So you're gonna be unprotected for a month while I'm gone?"

"No, I have people watching the entire apartment, infrared cameras in every corner and a complex alarm system which practically cannot be hacked."

"But you keep me. As a bodyguard. So you won't have that… quick response to any danger while I'm gone."

"There won't be any danger, Moran."

"But if there is, Boss?"

"What have you arranged for the month, then? I know you must have arranged something."

"Uh, I… hired another bodyguard." As I said so, Moriarty's fingers faltered and his eyes squinted in distrust, though he didn't look away from his screens. "He's one of us though! Ramin Oscar."

Moriarty's lips spread into a thin, mock-simpering smile. "Oh, Oscar," he remarked, voice acting at being soft and sweet. Here came Theatrical Moriarty. "I slept with him once or twice a few years ago."

On reflex, my jaw clenched together hard, catching a little bit of my tongue between my teeth. I clutched the spoon with such force that it bit into my fingers.

"How." I hissed, unable to hide the hot jealousy and rage boiling within me. "How. I'm always here."

"Oh, dear Moran, it seems that perhaps your hearing isn't quite as sharp as we thought. Hmm." He pouted in dramatics whilst still working on his screens. "I was just so bored, that once or twice. You know what, maybe it was five or six times… Maybe you should get me another bodyguard, come to think of it. It really does appear that you aren't so good at keeping eyes and ears out for me, my Moran. Do invite him over; he's such fun, I should like to play with him again."

By this point my body shook. Violent, nearly sloshing the milk over the lip of the bowl. My fingers prickled with the urge to wrap them around Oscar's throat. The sharp burn carried up my hands which clenched into fists, pushing the heat up my arms to my neck, filling my head with sick fury. I threw my half-empty bowl down onto the counter with more force than I thought and stormed off to my room, too full of agonising jealousy to hide my immaturity. I texted Ramin Oscar to come as soon as possible, collected my duffel bag and left for the airport 6 hours before my flight. I cried in the back of the cab.

Japan was as expected. I staked out, tapped into security footage, peered into windows, slept in hotel rooms all over the region, took out targets and continued to simmer and stew over my jealousy for the entire month. The killing did little, a negligible second of relief and distraction before my mind came back to Oscar again. I would lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling in near-darkness and picturing him. Why was I so angry at Jim for sleeping with him when I had done so - and enjoyed it, too? Well, I knew why. I felt that, above everyone else, I was entitled to his affection - simply for doing my job just as Oscar had. Why should he choose me over him? Why should he be celibate without me? Why should he choose me? We talked on rare afternoons every few months, casually texted from time to time and had watched movies together. But, ultimately, he was the Boss and I was a hired gun just like Oscar and Jim was allowed to fuck whoever he wanted. He had the power to do it anyway; who was I to want him when I wasn't ordered to?

For the remainder of the month, I batted away the jealousy and anger as well as I could with the defensive phrase that _he isn't mine._ I would think of Oscar, maybe in Jim's sheets in this very moment, and fill with rage. Then, I would remember how I had done the same, would remind myself of exactly who Jim Moriarty was and would remind myself, _he isn't mine._

The month ended and I took the long, long flight back to London without even a mocking text from Jim but _he isn't mine._ I returned to the apartment after an arduous wait at baggage claim and saw several of the clothes I'd seen in the bag strewn all over the floor but _he isn't mine._ Jim's screens had timed out and his door, ajar, leaked the smell of musk and sweat into the corridor. _He isn't mine._

Dropping my bag on the floor loud enough to draw attention to my presence, I got straight back to work at my desk and shut the door behind me. The thick stench of sex had oozed into the room as I'd entered. I opened a window, turned my desk fan on and sat in the crossbreeze, breathing shallowly until the smell faded. He wasn't mine. All of this work, and details to fill in about the mission, that was mine.

He wasn't mine. So, when he had finally kicked Oscar out of the flat and slunk into my room without knocking - pointedly wearing a very loosely-tied bathrobe - I tried so desperately hard not to look over. I couldn't see blankness and know that my boss Moriarty was toying with me. I couldn't see light and know that my friend Jim really wanted someone who wasn't me. I couldn't look in his eyes.

"Did you do everything I asked without being too caught up in me, Moran?" It was Moriarty, voice lower and less lilted though it was layered with a faux-cooing tone.

"Yes, Boss." Emails, data, reports. Don't get angry, don't get jealous, don't get upset.

"I had lots of fun with Ramin, by the way." I could hear the cruel grin around his words without having to see it.

Ramin. Ramin. Not Oscar. He never called me Sebastian whilst he was the Boss. Had he been calling Oscar by his first name this whole time? Was it so personal? Ramin. Fuck.

"That's nice, Boss." I swallowed. I really didn't want him to tell me in all the detail I knew he'd bring. I took an emotional risk and changed the subject to his other little boytoy. "How's Holmes?"

He giggled from the doorway and pranced over to my bed, flopping down on it girlishly as I remained fixed on my laptop. "He's fantastic, Moran, and I just learned ever so much about his little family - I could scarcely believe it, it had all been painted over so well, but there's a third-"

I let him ramble and I blocked him out. I caught snippets of "he can't even remember!" and "I'll be meeting her very soon", the latter almost making me shiver. But he wasn't talking about Oscar anymore and he wasn't mine; he could meet whoever he wanted. I only hoped he kept drinking his tea with eight lemons.

Alas, Jim Moriarty was rarely kind and never easy. The next morning, jet-lagged from the flight, I blearily cut four slices of lemon for Jim's tea and left the rest of the lemon in the bowl, watching him as I ate with my back against the fridge as usual. I blinked the tired mist from my eyes and shook the whispers of _bedtime_ from my head. At the counter island, he reached for the tongs with his left hand still on the keyboard. I rubbed the confused sleep out of my eyes as he did so and almost missed it. I counted the four slices more absently than usual, rattled by the time difference. One, two… Yes, four.

No. Two.

My brain bounced to life and my eyes snapped fully open, back straight against the fridge. I waited for him to take another, then another. His hand was back at his keyboard. It was just an important message, surely, and he would get the remaining two after he'd answered it. His hand didn't stray from the keyboard. It was just a new method to get more flavour in the tea? He didn't go back to the tongs. It wasn't what I thought it was. Except it was, and now there were six lemons in the cup.

There were six lemons in the cup with the two tigers that I'd chosen for our first morning back together after a month away and now he must have been in love with Ramin Oscar.

I think I'd have preferred him to skin me alive for interfering.


	8. One Day At A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of things.

He took six lemons in his tea, but he never mentioned Oscar again. Six lemons in his tea and I wouldn't hear any signs of any secret partner in Jim's room when he'd finally go to sleep. Six lemons and - even staying awake all night with my ear to the edge of his door, doing work that I would be too tired to do in the morning - there was never a peep from his room. Yet it wasn't a trick, couldn't be. Jim was cruel and sadistic, but he knew his own mind and he obviously knew that keeping his feelings in line was the only way he survived. 

He survived mainly for Holmes or the other Holmes or the _other_ other Holmes, whom he wouldn't stop talking about. She was unknown to the public, forgotten even by the younger brother, and he'd found out everything about her simply by being Moriarty - and was adamant that he would be going to see her by the end of the year, just for five minutes. He only needed five minutes. In fact, he only really needed two - he just wanted to see _her._ I didn't know why he was so enamoured with her and nor did I ask; it was either an extension of his obsession with the youngest Holmes brother or a new infatuation. Either way, I grew increasingly envious as the date of their meeting drew closer. It would be in December and though it was many months away, I could tell how excited Jim was. He was busy, straight-faced, silent Moriarty most days but I noticed a marked increase in my workload with much of the new work being more advanced than I was used to. Jim was sending me chunks of work that he could push aside in order to focus on his date with the Holmes sister. Meeting. His meeting with the Holmes sister.

When he was Jim, I couldn't shut him up even if I wouldn't fear for my life if I did so. I mostly zoned out when he started talking about her, a dangerous decision even when Jim seemed to be human, and would focus on one or two phrases every few minutes just in case he decided to do a fun pop quiz with me dangled from a rooftop to check if I was listening. Apparently, this meeting would set off his greatest plan "years in the making" (sounds like marriage) and that the Holmes boy would be "the final problem" of his (definitely sounds like marriage - shutting him up by making him an in-law?). Part way through one of these gushing descriptions, without even listening apart from the words I'd heard, I realised that my face had set into a sour expression of a barely-concealed grimace. Seeing this, my mouth being the only thing he’d look at, Jim’s face softened and his voice became thicker.

“What’s wrong?” He broke from his enthuse, eyes deep and glinting with cautious, curious light. When I didn’t respond beyond a shrug, his brows arched. “Jealous, my dear?” His face was hardened; growing harsher.

“Yeah, I am.” There was no use denying it - Jim was quickly finding that he needed to be entertained and I couldn’t hide anything when he became Moriarty.

His face grew wild, his mouth splitting into a crazed closed-mouth grin. He wanted to be bad, for a moment, to be cold and cruel and mocking. His eyes flattened to become darker before they paused, widened, glanced to his fingers looped around his teacup, flicked back to my chin and then became Jim’s again. Bright, glossy and full of… something, something I couldn’t quite place. Just for a second, they appeared to be warm, black colour melting between the whites and the pupils, blown wide with what surely must have been love... 

He plucked two lemons from his cup and tossed them onto the counter. Fuck. So much for that. First, Oscar brings him to six and now - knowing that I’m stricken and sick with jealousy when he talks about them - Jim’s crush on whichever Holmes has brought him down to four lemons. I stared at the stained slices against the marble and tried to control my breathing. Shallow and slow. _Two people, maybe even three!_ Just like breathing in order to take a kill shot. _Jim has loved two people, maybe even three!_ It’s his own life it’s his own life it’s his own life. _Jim has loved two people, maybe even three before me!_

Before me.

Shallow and slow.

At least there were still four slices.

I sipped my own tea and tried not to notice Jim’s eyes on me. I couldn’t meet his eyes either. What would happen when there were no slices left? Would he kill them for being in his way? Would he kill me for being jealous? Worst of all, would he leave me to be with them? There were four slices left which meant there were two more encounters for Jim to have before he was gone for good with some lucky tortured bastard who wasn’t me. So I guess I just had to make him like me more than anyone else.

I wished I could make him like me more than anyone else. The only thing was, I wasn’t like anyone else. I wasn’t exciting to Jim like Ramin Oscar had been, I wasn’t a genius beyond comprehension like the Holmes siblings and I wasn’t, it seemed after loving him for two years, Jim’s type at all. He spoke to me all day when he was feeling more well but now it was only ever Holmes-related. He didn't really make jokes anymore unless they were cruel, didn't watch movies with me anymore and still didn't make eye contact. Jim felt distant to me now; only speaking to me because I was there all the time, waiting for him to talk to me. I guessed that he did like me, at least tolerated me, but he certainly didn't love me and he didn't seem like me as much as he did some years ago. So, what did I need to do? I couldn't just suddenly become entertaining to Jim like Oscar was, unless he was making fun of me, and I couldn't boost my intelligence to the superhuman level of the Holmes siblings. I couldn't really do anything at all, being incredibly, horribly human and entirely unremarkable beyond my bloodlust. Maybe that was it. Maybe I was just too normal, too boring, too _human_ for him. Even Jim's own more human side was a wicked genius and troubled soul who needed to be distracted every second of every day lest he fall into his mind. 

Maybe the others were best for him. Jim couldn't be bored and the others never bored him. If he was with me… well, who knows? Maybe his mind would slip from its semblance of safety and fall away. Maybe it would make him so bored that he would hurt himself. Maybe it would kill him.

I certainly hoped not. And for some reason, against every thought I'd had since birth and all the logic I knew, a glimmer of optimism rose through me. I certainly hoped not. Maybe it would be okay, and he would love me, and he would be just fine.

Maybe the constant thought of Jim being in love was making me soft.

\----

I tasked other employees with my emails from that evening as I had to organise the massacre of a smaller, rival crime nest hideout. There were ten people inside and taking out all of them would shut down the network entirely - they were careless and underdeveloped that way. The Moriarty business simply couldn't allow these rivals to gain fame and traction amongst the whispers of the streets; they would undoubtedly fail at some point and Jim did not want the media to plant a foolish failure on the Moriarty network when they would be too lazy to find out where it actually came from. So their hub, an unassuming building wedged between office blocks, had to be fitted with explosives and blown apart. This would kill all ten inside the building and probably seriously maim a great deal of neighbours. Thanks to Moriarty's influence, this would turn out to be the unfortunate consequence of a ghastly "gas leak". It was curious, how many gas leaks there were every year in areas close to Moriarty hubs, just happening to destroy petty rivals.

It was up to me to pull together a perfect, traceless plan and deliver this to the bombers and security staff - in person, never by email for such a job - and go through each step with them. I was dreading it. I never really got on with people outside of death and danger but it was a necessary struggle in order to set up the mission that would keep Moriarty powerful and keep Jim safe. 

In another Moriarty hub, a lavish office block across town, I gave the brief, answered questions and sent various staff to various second and third locations to be kitted out and armed. I'd sent the last armed agent off to pick up their things and the rest of the staff who didn't need further briefing all filed out of the room. As they left, one smaller man with dark hair turned back to look at me and smiled devilishly. His grin was wide and held a promise that he would be wicked and seemed to be almost like Moriarty's. His eyes were both lively and had the softness that comes with being human and could almost be an actor's version of Jim. 

But his lips curved low - not the rising, shaped lips that Jim had - and his eyes were too light and blue; they could never be more than a pale, fool's imitation of the dangerous black that shone and then dulled in Jim's eyes. I took him back to his apartment anyway.

It wasn't great. He didn't scratch, bite or draw blood and his hands weren't Jim's. He didn't demand or push or pull and his voice wasn't Jim's. He didn't fit in my arms or mind or heart and he just wasn't Jim, wasn't what I wanted, wasn't what I'd been dying for a simple kiss from for two years. But he had hands, a voice and a body and it all came to something regardless.

I left him at his apartment as he napped and called a cab to take me back to Jim's place. As I stepped out, sweaty and a little strained, into the deep blue darkness of midnight, I reminisced on how very much this felt like my old life of taking a new body home each night. Strange, I realised next, that this had been my first thought. Strange, considering that I was now over two hours later than I was supposed to be and Moriarty would know. He would have known as soon as I'd climbed into the cab with the man - that would have been enough to get my finger chopped off. And of the two hours that followed… I wouldn't be surprised if I was to be burned alive the moment I walked through the door. Or maybe he would dismember me, finger by finger, toe by toe and limb by limb until I finally died in agony. Or maybe he would have my arms and legs strapped to some kind of elaborate stretching machine and pull my joints from each other. I expected all of those things for wasting Moriarty's time; getting personally involved with a subordinate; generally being tacky. This was what I expected for disobeying the Boss and to be honest I almost accepted it. I couldn't have Jim so I just wanted to get on with it with _someone_ after two years of pining and hoping and agonising. I expected to die horribly upon my return and ultimately decided that it was the most fitting end to a life unfulfilled.

When I opened the door it was quiet, the screens off and keyboard untapped. It was pitch black throughout the apartment, the curtains shut and no sliver of light below Jim's door. It was more unsettling to me than an apartment filled with toys of torture. Maybe Jim was just asleep? Surely not before 3am, not without the faint light of his private laptop screen left on in his room, not when he knew what I'd done. Maybe he didn't know. I paused, my breathing suspended. Maybe he didn't know; maybe he had been asleep. Maybe I didn't need to be strung up and fractured and sliced and burned alive. I exhaled and walked to my room on tiptoes so I wouldn't wake Jim.

As I passed Jim's door I heard a shuffle. I paused, listened. A crumple. I stepped closer to the door. A muffled noise. I pressed my ear to the edge of the door, making the slightest _bump_ noise as I did so. Silence. Fuck. He'd heard me; he was wide awake and plotting, yes, plotting my dead in blood and guts and gore and he would be sending someone in to do the job - never liked too much dirty work, not when it was personal and-

The door fell away from me and my head dropped forwards. I looked up, heart clenching, to see Jim. Looking me straight in the eyes. My heart dropped and my face flushed in an instant. His face was mottled with pink and white, clustered to red around his eyes, spattered along his cheeks and creasing between strained brows. His eyes were bloodshot and full. Upon meeting my eyes, the fullness spilled over and dripped down already-damp cheeks. A moment passed like this, Jim staring straight at me, pained and pink and silent. Then, from the thick, suffocating silence,

"Why not me?" Jim's voice shook, high and hysterical. "Why not me? You chose him - you don't even know him and you chose him!"

I, bitter from the jealousy and tired from two years of getting nothing from him and accepting death at this point, responded in a way I never thought I would with the man I loved.

I scoffed, sneered and said, "That's exactly the same way I've felt for the past two years!"

Jim's eyes widened, puffy and hurt. "What?" He whispered, receded into something very small.

Compassion uprooted by the rearing head of jealousy, I didn't back down. "So I'm not Sherlock fucking Holmes, so what? I've been here for you since you were seventeen, and he's all you ever fucking talk about! Oh, him and the sister - well, I'm sorry I'm not genius, okay? I'm sorry I'm too ordinary, ordinary people are too boring for you, yeah? Oh but not Ramin fucking Oscar, oh no, he was just fine, just fine as your little pet, wasn't he? And you have the fucking _nerve_ to talk about me choosing someone else? Take a look at how you've pushed me aside for four years for someone better and brainier than me. And maybe you'll kill me afterwards, so what? I've been in love with you since you were _nineteen_ and now what the fuck do I have left to hope for?" I swallowed. I'd done it now. "What do I have left? We used to watch movies…"

I felt a lump rising in my throat and I pushed it down. Nothing but dignity and pride on the day that I die. Jim was looking at the floor now, had been for my entire rant, and he muttered something that I couldn't hear. A threat, perhaps. When I didn't respond, he looked up, eyes now manic and streaming with tears.

"You complete fucking _doofus!"_ He screamed, pushing me hard against the wall outside his room. His hands remained driven painfully into my chest as another scream rose from him in a crescendo. He bashed his head against my chest and I restrained myself from holding him.

"Boss," I began. I was cut off by another scream.

"Don't fucking call me that!" Jim whimpered. "Don't. I can't bear it."

"Why not?" My voice had softened of its own will.

"I don't understand you."

_"Me?"_ I guffawed. Jim shot me a look, still scary as ever, and I shut my mouth.

"So you…" he missed out the words, "felt like that for two years; since I was nineteen?" I nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut and snapped them open to meet mine. "And you feel entirely agonised by this; you have felt so desperate for so long?"

"Yes, and I only went with him because it's the first sign of anything I've had in two years. Two years! Do you have any idea how painful that is, just wanting one person for so long?"

He withdrew his hands from me to wrap around chunks of his hair.

"Sebastian." He released his hair, inhaled, grabbed his face, exhaled and weaved his fingered together so tightly that they turned white. "I have loved you since I was seventeen."

All the blood in my body soared and dipped throughout me.

"You mean… you… four years?"

He turned away, lips pressed together. Then he raised his hands and wiggled them, jazz-style. "Four years!" He sang, though his voice quivered and broke. 

"But you never even… and the lemons?"

"You want the full story and I'll tell you the full story, since you seem to have been so blind and stupid for four years. You really should be more observant as a sniper." His insults didn't really cut now, with his raw voice and tearful face. "I loved you as soon as I saw you, just not as much as it came to be… I was 17 and I was full of want and you were right there, scarred and bloodthirsty and so _loyal…_ I just had to keep you. 

"When I was 18 and you lived here, it all became just a little more intense on every level all at once. You were just there, being big and living with my cruelty every day to protect me. I decided that I could allow myself to be myself around you, when I was able. And, oh, when you took it well and we could watch movies, that was truly the happiest I'd ever been. I made it so painfully obvious that I liked you then, with all the movies and the flirting. I just wanted to take you to bed really, nothing more, and I tried to tell myself that you were ignoring it because you weren't that shallow.

"Then I was 19 and I came to the conclusion that you wanted to know the real me more personally than casual conversation. I'd planned to tell you about how I get regarding what you saw in the bathroom but I never got the chance to do so before you saw it for yourself. That was far too much for me when I wasn't ready to tell you yet. I overreacted greatly, I know that, but at some point I realised this could be good for us. I wanted you to hold me and make it all go away. You left the next day. You broke my heart. I couldn't let myself see you in case it really ruined me for good. I couldn't even look you in the eye - not after you'd left me in that state, so I locked you out - I had to be in control of who waltzed in and out of my life.

"It didn't last forever as I'd hoped because from the first five minutes I started to miss you eating like a pig and making noise in your room like a wild animal so I allowed myself to have a little treat of having you around for the day before my birthday. It was awkward and painful and I had you move back in anyway. It hit me the next day when I'd turned twenty that it was quite a bit more than a sexually-led infatuation.

"That realisation was more than I could handle but I found that I couldn't kill you so I just tried to dismiss you. But you were a stubborn ass and it didn't do anything for my wellbeing to return from my leave from the apartment to see you in my sheets like I'd wanted when I was a teenager. It was like you were mocking the fact that now I wanted something more. Something more and yet something less because I didn't _want_ to sleep with you, I wanted to…

"Then you left again and you left with a perfect opportunity to pretend that you meant nothing to me and that I was only keeping you for your own sake. Ramin Oscar really wasn't very fun but playing the game of being aloof with you? That just gave me shivers.

"The lemons. I can't _believe_ you didn't figure out the lemons; I'd gotten so tired of acting out the motions of hating you that I just decided to explain to you why I do certain things. I don't care about taste or texture because all food is repulsive to me, you know that. I've just found that some things; pushing my human side away and becoming Moriarty, always wearing a suit to preprogram my day, distracting myself from smaller thoughts with strong flavours like lemon - they help me not to fall apart. When I felt this unrequited love so deeply and agonisingly, I needed something to keep myself from being wound up in it while I was working. It wasn't enough to help me sleep at night but it allowed me to function. I removed two lemons each time I saw a real piece of evidence that you liked me too, because each glimmer of hope erased a small fraction of the worry in my mind. I took two out for your jealousy over Ramin Oscar, so strong that you asked about _Sherlock._ I took two out when you completely affirmed that you were jealous of my upcoming meeting with Eurus - this piece was so undeniable that, this evening when I was thinking about you as I always do, I took two more lemons out of my cup, leaving two."

My thoughts were a buzzing emission of white noise, occasionally spitting out his words of "you broke my heart", "I wanted something more", "unrequited love" and "thinking about you as I always do". My chest felt tight; my heart swollen and enormous with feelings and butterflies and blood that yearned to know more. I felt the blood in my face, darkening it from my forehead to my chin, blooming scarlet across my cheeks and to the tips of my ears. I had so many questions and stories and kisses and cuddles and soft words and harder words and new scars to acquire in new ways. I had so many questions.

"Why are there still two lemons?" I asked first, stupidly.

Jim laughed weakly. "Through all my speculation and four years of wanting and needing and dying to know, I didn't know for certain if you…" He smoothed his suit jacket. "I'm still not sure if I really heard you say it or if I'm truly going madder than ever."

"You heard me."

"Oh, did I?" He grinned toothily, catlike, in challenge, just like my favourite Jim.

"Yeah." I felt nervous resistance pulsing in my chest. I looked at Jim - full of all the charisma and wit and coldness and cruelty and laughter and love that I could ever want - and pushed the resistance back. "I love you."

Jim's mouth parted in a shallow gasp before regaining his cocky confidence. He tilted his head back to give me a half-lidded, cool look.

I stopped him. "Don't. Don't put on an act. Just tell me it the way you feel it, please okay?"

His face relaxed. He reached out to touch my arm, gentle. "I love you, Sebastian." 

No words had ever sounded so beautiful in Irish, in a soft voice, passed in Jim's own nervous breath. I felt filled with the words, pushed to the brim with them. His and mine, all together within me. _I love you I love you I love you I love you._ His hand lain softly on my arm seemed to leave the most wonderful kind of burn with it and my skin roared to feel it everywhere. I surged forward with my fingers tilting his jaw to meet me, needing the heat on my lips.

Jim stepped back before out keep a could meet, blushing red and wringing his hands.

"Sorry, I… too much, all of a sudden, four years and… too much, I'm sorry, I do want… I'm sorry."

"That's okay. You're okay. _I'm_ sorry, I should have… asked. You're okay. I'll ask next time, okay?"

"Next time?" His eyes were saucer-wide.

"Unless you don't-"

"-I do. I do."

A smile rose from the flutter in my heart to my face.

"Good."

"When shall we expect it to happen; I'll need to know so that I can be ready - I must shave better for it - when should I do so?"

"Jim." I touched his arm, the only place he was ready to be loved right now. "I will always be here, no matter which version of you I see. We can take our time, what's this time compared to four years, huh? One day at a time, okay?"

"Okay."

He stepped closer to me and lay his forehead cautiously on my collarbone. My heart thrummed and whooped and soared and I found that I was grinning at nothing in particular. I'd never been so happy not to kiss someone.


End file.
